Confessions of a Military Wife

by Mollie Gross

  I was driving so slowly that she was able to walk up beside me. “Mollie, did you take one of your pills? I think you need to park your go-cart and come inside.”

  Who knows how long I’d been out there. I could’ve gotten a ticket for driving under the influence!

  I should have learned my lesson, but this the first of many Xanaxinduced vehicular mishaps.

  On another day, I was scheduled to have a cavity filled. I knew I was going to freak out, so I took a Xanax on a full stomach.

  I was fine, no panic attack. I even thought I was fine on the drive home. I waved to my neighbor across the street before I pulled into the driveway. Then the craziest thing happened as I pulled up the driveway. Out of nowhere the house JUMPED out in front of the car and hit the bumper.

  I felt my body whipped around the car just before I threw it into park. Damn that Xanax!

  Then I realized my neighbor across the street had seen the entire thing. How could I play it off? Oh, I know. I’ll just sit in the car for a few minutes and maybe she’ll leave.

  Yep, that’s the amazing, crystal-clear thought process you have while on Xanax.

  I sat in the car for ten minutes. I avoided looking toward her house because I didn’t want to acknowledge that I had wrecked my car in my own driveway. Finally, I grabbed my purse and climbed out.

  As I opened the car door I heard her call out, “Mollie, are you OK? I saw you hit your house with your car. You’ve been sitting there for ten minutes!”

  Busted.

  A word to the wise: unless you want to humiliate yourself in front of your neighbors, friends, and commissary employees, take your meds at home on a full stomach and stay there until you get used to them.

  SHOPPING SPREE!

  Besides going out for a manicure and a pedicure, one of my favorite things to do with the girls is to shop.

  Natalie, Liz, and I would pile into the car and head to the mall. You don’t have to go to the mall to get all the good deals. Michelle gave me a great tip about “shopping” on base. When people PCS, they tend to leave a lot of furniture behind, often right in the front yard. The rule on the base is simple: “finders-keepers!” And the higher the rank of the household, the better the treasures left behind!

  On our evening walks we scoped out families preparing to move. We found computer desks, high chairs, strollers, playpens, grills, wicker chairs—the list goes on and on!

  Michelle and I became known for our quick acquisition of property. Michele often called me on her cell phone while she was driving home from the bus stop. “Meet me at such-and-such for a pick up!”

  But let me offer a word of caution: make sure someone is actually moving before you take something out of his or her yard. This mistake can be quite embarrassing, especially when you have a yard sale and one of your neighbors recognizes their missing family heirloom in the middle of your pile of stuff!

  One day Michelle and I set out on our afternoon walk and stumbled upon an old wooden ammo crate. Since one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, I decided it would make a great coffee table for the back patio.

  It was pretty heavy, so Michelle suggested that I go get my car. We could slide it in the back and unload it at the house after we finished our walk.

  I was so excited about getting another great “Del Mar Street Bargain” that I cranked the car and backed out the driveway at full speed—right into my neighbor’s car. Of course, this is the same neighbor who watched me crash into my own house one week earlier. (I promise I was not on Xanax this time.)

  That ammo crate ended up costing me more than $500 in repairs to the neighbor’s car. My husband was not too impressed with the news of that bargain. Still, I went after the ammo crate. I was going to get my $500 dollars worth of pleasure out of that thing come hell or high water!

  And we did, using it throughout the years we were on base.

  FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

  Communicating with your spouse during a deployment often presents some challenges. There is very little you can do to enrich your marriage at this time. It’s really all about sustaining it.

  At times, I was guilty of thinking, “What can Jon do for me while I am so lonely here at home without him?” You can’t have that attitude. You are truly on your own.

  Maybe I am not the best role model because the only deployments I experienced were during wartime, when nothing is guaranteed. Phone calls, letters, and emails were sporadic at best.

  I lived for the mail. During Jon’s first deployment I received frequent letters. I would be so excited I would run back in the house and read them while sitting in the bathroom crying. I never shared my letters with anyone. They were mine and they were private.

  Phone calls were different. All of the wives were really good about sharing info from emails or calls because those were so rare.

  At that time we were desperate for up-to-date news as well as the assurance that our husbands were safe.

  If Natalie got a call from Carl, she would call me and I would know Jon was OK. If I got an email from Jon, he would let me know Carl was OK, and I would pass this on to Natalie. We were all really good about sharing news.

  No matter what form the communication comes in, it is still not the same as the daily one-on-one communication in a marriage. You both need to prepare for that and know your limitations.

  I can just about guarantee that there will be a fight, and it will be horrible because during one of the middle rounds the email will shut down or the phone will go dead. Don’t beat yourself up over it. It is what it is.

  We all have spats with our spouses; it’s a part of marriage. You can try to do everything you can to minimize fights and avoid arguments, but there will be one. It’s not the end of the world. Just accept it.

  Just like in the civilian world, the most common argument is over money. I had a girlfriend who hit the roof when she learned her husband had purchased a very expensive camera while he was deployed because his had broken. They needed to talk about such a large purchase, but there was no opportunity to do so. They had a budget, but the inability to communicate over finances really hurt them.

  This fight dragged on for days. Neither was right, and neither was wrong. Still, they couldn’t talk about it without fighting.

  Today they laugh about the episode, but it was a real issue at the time. As should be clear by now, deployments add crazy stress to everyone.

  Jon and I had a nasty argument over money during his first deployment. Some crisis happened at home and I had to buy a bunch of things in a row—a microwave, new tires and, of course, my hair needed to be bleached.

  I thought I had it all under control. I was working and was expecting a paycheck. I figured I would pay the credit card bill off when my paycheck arrived. Logical, right?

  Jon had been in the field for more than a month. When he came in, he went online, checked our banking account—and freaked out! After weeks of not hearing from him, I woke up the next morning to find a scathing email outlining how irresponsible I had been with our finances.

  The battle was on! I emailed him back that he had broken my heart. I was deeply hurt that he could not trust me. I told him I couldn’t believe he was questioning me about money when I didn’t even know if he was alive! He quickly saw the error of his ways and we settled it.

  Remember, tone can be very difficult to interpret in emails. We didn’t communicate well. We didn’t handle that situation correctly. Remember when I had thoughtlessly sent the life insurance letter to Jon? He should have sent me a thoughtful email first—and then asked about the finances.

  When you are not around each other every day, these “outbursts” can blindside you. Jon knew I was in charge of the money and the house. But it was hard for him not to be part of what was going on at home. He also forgot that his first communication with me needed to be more lighthearted and upbeat, like, “Hey, babe, I’m all in one piece!” Not, “What in God’s name did you spend all the separation pay on?”

&nbs
p; I think the hardest part of getting calls from overseas is that they come in at all hours. Worst of all, you never knew when you would get another one.

  The pressure is always on to keep the conversation positive. The toughest time is when you have had a horrible day and you just want your best friend to be there to listen and comfort you. But you know, deep down, that if you dump on your husband he will get worried and it will pull his focus from doing what he needs to be doing. You just can’t afford to bother him with anything while he is deployed.

  Trust me, these men feel helpless because they can’t fix our problems. They hate that feeling, so spare them from it and don’t rub salt into their wounds.

  So here you are, you have cried off and on all day. The dog threw up on your pants. Your friends are in their own little world. No one wants to talk to you. You got a flat tire, and now you’re feeling sick. The phone rings. It’s your man and he needs a little phone R & R.

  It’s time to remember that as bad as your day has been, it hasn’t been as bad as his day. Your husband has literally been dodging bullets to stay alive.

  Now, I’m not suggesting you fake it or hide things from him. I’m just saying you need to think before you speak. As much as you have to act, you need to remain positive and upbeat. He needs that deposit made into his heart.

  Write everything out you want to say in an email, journal, or letter. Then sit on it and wait for the right time to send it. For me, letters were a way to get everything out clearly, intimately, without being interrupted. And I lived for Jon’s letters in return.

  When you are on the phone, you won’t be able to take your words back. Besides that, the phone could cut out at any time—and it is usually at the worst time.

  I always thought of phone calls as quick ways to touch base, and never really put a lot of expectations into our calls. We used them as a way to hear each other’s voices, not as a venue to discuss our feelings.

  Phone calls are an art. You’ve got to work on the rhythm and flow. First, you have to get past the awkwardness of not having spoken in a while. Add being hyper and wanting to talk at the same time. Then there’s the classic delay that comes with using government phones.

  So you have a phone call that sounds more like two sixth graders with a crush stumbling through a first phone conversation.

  When my husband first deployed, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were a huge fear. Chemical weapons were something the troops prepared to face and the wives feared.

  The one place that chemical weapons attack first is where cells multiple the fastest: the testicles. All of us had heard about the horrible disaster following the 1991 Gulf War. Some of the troops developed a problem with their semen. It felt like fire when they ejaculated, making sex miserable.

  The wives were freaked. Not to mention, none of us wanted one-eyed babies. So the first couple of times my husband would call from Iraq I would blurt out, “How are your balls?”

  I begged him to snag some extra kevlar and make a kevlar cup.

  Sometimes during deployments you get calls from your husband at odd times, including the middle of the night. The phone rings when you’re half asleep and you have no idea what’s going on.

  Some of my more organized girlfriends suggest keeping a list next to the bedroom phone so you won’t forget to talk about the important issues when he calls.

  I was never upset when he called late at night, but it did take me a minute or two to get my thoughts together.

  PHONE SEX OPERATOR

  There was an opportunist who thought he could take advantage of lonely wives accustomed to late-night calls from their husbands.

  I heard rumors about a prank caller phoning wives and asking for phone sex in the middle of the night. I was appalled. Of course, we were all afraid of being raped.

  This master of “self-love” had learned the base phone prefix and spent his nights dialing away. Wives always answered in fear that they would miss a call from their real husband.

  I, too, fell prey to this creep. It was about 2:00 a.m. one morning, and I had not heard from Jon in more than a week.

  When the phone rang, I heard a quiet whispering voice on the other end. This was not unusual because Jon liked to keep his conversation private. He called me “Baby.”

  “Are you ok?” I asked sleepily. “Are you getting my letters? Darius is in bed with me.” Darius is our cat.

  Pause. “How are the kids doing?” asked the soft voice.

  The kids? Wait a minute—time to wake up! I had to think fast. I didn’t want to offend my husband if I was wrong. Was Jon referring to our pets as kids, as I often do? But Jon never did that.

  This is more of a mess than you think. You’re thinking, “Well Mollie, just hang up!” I couldn’t! My husband didn’t know about the prank caller because I hadn’t told him. Why get him upset about that?

  If I had called my husband a pervert and hung up on him, what would he think on his end? And what if he could not call me back?

  Just when I was starting to dismiss my paranoid thoughts my “husband” asked me to have phone sex with him.

  That did it. Jon’s a Scorpio, but he’s also Catholic. There was no way this whispering, muffled voice on the line belonged to my husband.

  I hung up.

  This guy called a lot of ladies on the base. Can you imagine how many wives thought it was their husband and actually had phone sex with this perve?

  Maybe they actually were grateful for a little action and refused to accept the fact it was a prank call. We’ll never know.

  I know Michelle sat by the phone every night with a bottle of wine waiting for this guy to call. To this day I’m not sure if she was looking forward to cursing him out or going along for the ride!

  IN PRINT

  During Jon’s first deployment, a reporter from CNN was embedded with his battalion. It was bittersweet and surreal to see this reporter on the news knowing he was with my husband’s battalion.

  During his second deployment, it seemed like at least once a month Jon’s photo was on the front page of the local paper. I would get a call from Natalie or Christa screaming that Jon’s face was plastered across the front of the newspaper. That’s when we would jump into action and go out and buy as many copies as possible to mail them out to family members.

  That’s also how I found out he had shaved his head. I cried when I saw the image of my husband praying on the front page of the paper. I didn’t recognize him at all, and it shocked me.

  I knew this deployment was harder on him because he wasn’t writing as often. The fighting had escalated, and there were numerous casualties.

  This shot captured such an intimate moment in my husband’s life. He was frozen in time, caught in a moment of intense prayer. The photo shook me to the core. I could see things about my husband in these photos that others would not notice. It was an odd way of communicating, but I could sense his emotions.

  But I had no one to share these feelings with. The other wives had their own issues, and my civilian friends couldn’t relate.

  WHY YOU NEED TO SHAVE YOUR LEGS

  They say when a bunch of women are around each other for a certain amount of time, they start cycling their periods together. This phenomenon happened to those of us who spent much of our time together. Did I tell you how close the ladies of Del Mar had become?

  During tough deployments we shared meals, secrets, tears, fears, exercise, and even helped raise each other’s kids.

  But I was not ready to share everything. I had to draw the line somewhere, and Michelle tried to cross it.

  It was a hot afternoon. Just another lazy day in Southern California. The kids were playing in the blow-up pool in the front yard. Jon and Kevin had both been deployed for about four months. Michelle and I were both dragging.

  When Michelle got thirsty, she asked her son David (who was four at the time), to “bring mommy a coke.” He came back with a Coors Lite.

  I don’t think the confusion came from th
e diet coke can being silver like the “Silver Bullet.” I think Michelle had been busted. And it was priceless.

  She drank it. After all, it was five o’clock somewhere. From then on, Michelle referred to her beloved Coors Lite as “Mommy Coke.”

  After everyone was done swimming, Michelle needed help emptying the pool. Besides the water, there was grass, plastic wrappers, a swim diaper, and urine from all the neighborhood boys who had been swimming in it.

  There was no way Michelle and I could lift it. It was more than two feet deep and weighed a ton. So we stood on the sides of the pool and pushed it down, letting the water leak out. We kept losing our balance because the plastic sides were so slick, and began laughing hysterically. We hooked arms and stepped on the edge at the same time.

  It probably looked like a scene from a “Mentos” commercial.

  We held onto each other trying to keep our balance and that’s when my leg brushed up against hers. We had become close friends, so I didn’t have a personal space issue with Michelle. Touching her didn’t bother me.

  That was when I noticed she had stopped moving and was staring at me.

  I looked at her. “What?”

  “Miss Mollie, your leg is so muscular and hairy,” she answered. “It’s quite masculine. I think I just got aroused!”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I thought she was joking. Then I realized she wasn’t.

  This is the price you pay when you don’t shave your legs for a while. Gals, one of your hard-up, horny neighbors may get aroused. Before she could kiss me, I jumped off the pool and ran into the house.

  The Bible talks about “Love thy neighbor,” but I don’t think this was what He was talking about!

  For days, every time I stepped outside, Michelle would be waiting for me in the driveway we shared. She would stand there waving and giggling. It was too much for me to take, and I was beyond embarrassed. In fact, I was a little afraid and refused to face her. So I stayed inside my house for a week. Michelle would call, but I wouldn’t pick up.

  I really freaked out when I heard her purring outside my bedroom window, “Miss Mollie … I know you’re in your room … I can hear you in there breathing. Why aren’t you coming outside? Is it because I was having lustful thoughts about your legs! I have never been ‘lesbian’ before, but there was just something about you the other day …”